The key is purposeful practice, and the earlier hockey coaches, parents and players can adopt this concept, the easier hockey player development will be.

With similar ice-time, opportunity, and hockey equipment as many others my age, I separated myself from the pack and made it to the competitive level.

Why? How?

I was lucky enough to have coaches & mentors who understood purposeful practice and taught me how to use the concept each time I stepped out onto the ice.

As a coach or parent, you play a crucial role in player development, and instilling this 3-step process early on in your child’s career will have a positive ripple effect for years to come.

Here’s the 3-step process and how you can use it to switch from a ‘just practice‘ mentality to a ‘purposeful practice‘ mentality.

Step 1 – Early hockey player development (parents & players)

At first, you’re going to want to focus on quantity over quality.

Sounds contradicting, I know.

But in the early stages of a player’s hockey career, it’s more important to just play and experience every possible scenario in the game of hockey than it is to try and perfect certain skills.

Trying to perfect a certain skill is time wasted that could be spent on playing the entire game as a whole—the latter is much more effective for player development early on.

The faster and more often a player can practice, the faster he will learn. Plain and simple.

Think experience over perfection in the early years. The more time spent out on the ice, the more development occurs.

Encouraged by his father, Tiger Woods started practicing at 18 months old. He focused on quantity over quality of practice in the early stages, and practiced nearly everyday for 15 years before winning the U.S. Amateur Championship at age 18.

If you’re a parent and your kid just can’t get enough of hockey, give him as many opportunities to play as possible .

But don’t force it—it has to come from your child.

If you’re a player and truly want to be the best you can be, play as much as you can without worrying about ‘being perfect’.

Perfect comes later.

Once you’ve logged enough hours on the ice, then you can worry about being perfect.

Then comes the time where you have to make a conscious decision—do you really want to become a great player?

It’s no longer about your parents, but about you.

You have to decide if hockey is just a game for you or if it’s your passion.

To develop further is going to take blood, sweat, tears, and most importantly—purposeful practice.

A fixed mindset is when someone believes that their basic qualities are set in stone—that is, they believe
talent plays a big part in one’s success and that there’s not much they can do to improve. They accept this as fact and just go through the motions.

On the other hand, a growth mindset is when someone believes that their basic abilities can be developed—that is, they believe talent is just the starting point. This mindset creates a love for learning, improving, and a sense of resilience that is essential for significant development.

They’re right.

All great athletes embrace a growth mindset. In order to go from good to great, you have to develop a growth mindset and believe that small daily progress leads to significant improvement over time.

As a coach, your job is to foster this growth mentality and praise effort and work ethic over talent.

Only once players learn to adopt a growth mindset can they make the leap to purposeful practice.

Step 3 – Purposeful practice (players & coaches)

Now that you’ve emphasized quantity over quality for some time and have adopted a growth mindset, you’re ready to start focusing on purposeful practice in order to perfect your skills.

Here’s how to practice with a purpose in order to maximize player development:

Goal setting

Choose a skill that you struggle with and set a goal to improve it. Your goal should be reasonable, and not unattainable so as to discourage you. Your goal should be just outside your comfort zone but within reach. The objective is to set goals that lead to continuous improvement over time.

For example, let’s say you’re currently able to place your shot where you want on net 5 out of 10 times (on average) .

Set a goal to improve to 7 out of 10 times on a regular basis (not just once). This would be an overall improvement, and isn’t too far out of reach from what you’re currently capable of.

In this example, being able to place your shot 7 out of 10 times repeatedly after purposeful practice would mean a noticeable improvement of your shooting accuracy.

In order to achieve this result, you’re going to need to evaluate yourself.

Self-evaluation

As you’re carrying out the skill during practice, focus on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it the way you are.

If we use the same example as above, notice what you’re doing right when you hit your target, and what you’re doing differently when you miss. Adapt, modify and try different things as you go to see if there’s a better or more effective way of doing things.

In this case, maybe you would try something like different hand placement, different puck-on-blade positioning, or even a different shot-release point.

You get the idea.

Now that you’ve evaluated your own performance, it’s time to get an outsider’s perspective.

Ask for feedback

This is where it helps to have a coach, parent, or someone knowledgeable give you feedback on what you did well and what you did poorly.

You’ve already self-evaluated your performance during practice, but it helps to get another opinion. What’s more, having someone more knowledgeable than you provide feedback is a sure way to improve. They may notice things that you yourself didn’t notice.

As a player, it’s important to ask for this feedback whenever necessary, and as a coach it’s important to provide this feedback whenever possible.

Without feedback, players can continue down the wrong path and never see any significant development.

Players shouldn’t be emotional about feedback—constructive criticism is all part of the learning process, and a growth mindset welcomes all forms of feedback.

Coaches should share the good, the bad and the ugly—what coaches refrain from saying in order to remain positive or ‘polite‘ can actually be counter-productive.

Feedback is a crucial part of hockey player development…be sure there’s plenty of it to go around.

And remember, praise the effort—not the talent.

The perfect ‘purposeful practice’ example

The perfect example of practicing with a purpose comes from an article on fortune.com. It’s about golf, but it’s the same for any sport, including hockey:

“Simply hitting a bucket of balls is not purposeful practice, which is why most golfers don’t get better. Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80 percent of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day — that’s purposeful practice.“

Apply this concept to your game and development will be inevitable.

Conclusion

So there you have it—the 3-step process coaches, parents & players must understand for effective development.

First, you have to focus on quantity of ice-time over quality.

Then, assuming you adopt a growth mindset, you can start focusing on quality and perfecting your on-ice skills with purposeful practice following the plan laid out above.

As a parent, the greatest impact you can have in your child’s hockey career is to provide them with the ice-time they need to explore the sport and to provide support along the way.

If you don’t have a decent understanding of the game, you probably shouldn’t provide feedback—leave that to the coaches or find a mentor that knows the game.

As a coach, the greatest impact you can have on young hockey players is to teach all you know and provide feedback—the good, the bad and the ugly. If a player isn’t ready to deal with negative feedback, he won’t last very long. It’s part of the game and is what leads to growth as a player.

Of course, at a young age, you’ll want to do it tastefully. Past the Bantam/Midget level, you don’t have to sugarcoat it 😉

And as a player, your job is to first make a conscious decision that you want to improve and then adopt a growth mindset.

From there, you can practice purposefully and improve your skills over time, making continuous improvements by setting goals, evaluating your performance and getting feedback from others along the way.

And always remember:

The same ice-time.

The same hockey equipment.

The same opportunity.

The concept of ‘purposeful practice‘ is what separates you from the pack.

About the author

Ben Levesque

Ben has been playing hockey for 20+ years and has learned a ton from playing with the world's best coaches & players. Among his accomplishments are a National Championship, a President's Cup, a Semi-Final finish at the Memorial Cup, several Queen's Cups and a helmet in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I find what you are doing and how you are doing it terrific and essential.I am a football coach with no hockey background that started my grandson in hockey,now 12 years old,if I can understand the great way you are presenting all this hockey wisdom any one can.keep it coming ,it is great and maybe overlooked by those involved in hockey all their lives

Arthur, thanks so much for the kind words! I try and explain the concepts as best and as clearly as I can. Glad you enjoy the articles. Will try to keep up the quality! If there’s anything you’d like to learn more about, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do. Cheers!

I’m a bantam A player trying to improve my game a lot right now, as I’m not exactly at the skill level I’d like to be at. I wanted to keep this article and maybe even give it to some of my teammates on the team as I am the captain, and was wondering if you know of any way I could save it to my computer? I love the articles, I initially found out about your blog from you hockey IQ quiz. I only subscribed to it about a week ago, and I’ve loved every article thats come out since! Really look forward to seeing these things in my inbox!

Hey Kyle! Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate your feedback. It’s great that you want to share this with your teammates—great initiative to take as a leader for your team. I’ll do my best to keep providing valuable information for you to help improve your game. I’ve sent a PDF version over to your email address so you can print it out. Enjoy!

Great site here. Love what you are putting out there. I think a great article (maybe you have one and I missed it) would be on what a ‘purposeful’ off-ice work out would be. What I mean, is kids follow the coach’s instructions at practice. but what about when they head to stick-time, or at home on their driveway or shooting pad. what drills/focus should they have to get the most out of the 30 minutes or so that they may have?

Ben,
This is not only about this article but I need help. I am 15 old from Czech so my english is not the best level but I hope you will not worry. Firstly I have to say you hockey is not just a passion for me, its my life. I do everything for make the NHL, I think I can. But I have big problems about controling myself… I am too agressive when i am losing in the most banal hockey competition. I trash with my stick, I am jumping on the boards shouting a pounding the boards and things like that you know its horrible. I dont know i just cant control me. I do these things even if the puck flies away or blow the shot. I would like you to advise me. The reason why i write it here is because I want to do all things properly like you write be on ice thre times a day is a little for me, i just love it, i do these things like you write and I thing I can have everything to make the NHL. This is my dream I love it…
Thanks for answering
Pavel

Hi Pavel! Greetings from Canada 🙂 First off, it sounds like you have a real love for the game…that will take you farther than many players! Controlling your emotions on the ice can be challenging, no doubt.Check out this post…it may help. I’ll write another post soon on controlling your emotions during an entire game, so be sure to look out for it! Thanks for your comment.

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About Ben Levesque

Ben Levesque is the creator of Built for Hockey. He's been playing hockey competitively for 20+ years, and has played with or against some of the world's best players. His own accomplishments include a President's Cup, a National Championship, and even a helmet in the Hockey Hall of Fame. With Built for Hockey, he looks to help hockey players of all levels master the mental aspect of the game by sharing his experiences, tips & tricks he learned over his career. Continue reading...